Judge drops all charges against ex-nurse in alleged murder-for-hire

Was Kristine Eastman, of Sherrill, ever really serious about hiring a hit-man to kill her ex-husband over a heated custody battle involving their daughter last year?

The answer may never be known.

ROCCO LaDUCA

Was Kristine Eastman, of Sherrill, ever really serious about hiring a hit-man to kill her ex-husband over a heated custody battle involving their daughter last year?

The answer may never be known.

At least it won’t come from a criminal court, after an Oneida County Court judge dismissed all charges against Eastman on Monday over a legal mistake that surfaced in the middle of her trial.

Eastman, 33, already has lost her job as a nurse at the Central New York Psychiatric Center. She has lost custody of her 6-year-old daughter, and she has spent the past 10 months seen as a woman who wanted her former husband dead.

But she also could have faced years in prison if convicted, until Judge Barry M. Donalty agreed with her defense attorney’s argument that a lack of clarity in the written indictment prevented the judge from deciding Eastman’s guilt or innocence.

Eastman chose to have her trial heard by Judge Donalty instead of a jury and he sat inside the otherwise empty jury box to listen to Monday morning’s testimony.

“We’re faced with an interesting legal issue here as opposed to a factual issue,” Donalty told the attorneys. “Under those circumstances, I don’t see any method or manner by which I can continue this trial.”

An upbeat Eastman declined to comment as she left the courthouse alongside her current husband, Carlton Eastman. Her attorney, however, said he hopes this positive outcome would help turn around the family court proceedings in her favor.

“I wish I could do more for her,” Curley said. “I wish I could put her life together for her.”

Prosecutors say that in October 2010 Kristine Eastman approached two of her co-workers at the psychiatric center and talked about killing her former husband, Damion Marino.

“I need a hit man. I want to kill him,” Eastman allegedly told one coworker, Qasim Piracha, according to his testimony Monday. “Can you kill him for me?”

After Eastman allegedly offered $20,000 to have Marino killed, Piracha said he later asked Eastman if she was joking. “If you are serious, then I am serious. Let’s do it,” Eastman allegedly told Piracha, he said.

A 30-minute recording also was played in court during which a second co-worker, Ed Turczyn, could be heard asking Eastman if she really meant what she said to Piracha. Eastman answered Turczyn, whom she didn’t realize had been wired up by state police investigators to record the conversation.

“I don’t know if I want to kill him,” Eastman said in the recording. Then when asked if she would just want him hurt, Eastman replied, “It’d be kind of nice to give him a taste of his own medicine.”

Because the indicted charges did not specifically identify by name anyone Eastman was accused of approaching to harm Marino, Donalty said there was no way for him to distinguish whose testimony should be linked to which charge.

Shortly after Donalty dismissed the charges, prosecutor Oneida County First Assistant District Attorney Dawn Catera Lupi left the courtroom carrying an armful of court files. She said the issue probably could have been brought up by the defense and resolved before trial, but now it was too late to bring a new, corrected indictment against Eastman.

“Of course it’s disappointing, but I respect the court’s decision,” Lupi said, then noted that the District Attorney’s Office would review how such a mistake can be avoided in the future.